The red house by the lake

Monday, June 20, 2011

I am planning our garden wedding that is to take place in less than four weeks while at the same time working 10-hour days.

I never thought I would give up blogging at this time, but I really have to. There is not time to take and post pictures of all the preparations the way I want to, and I will just have to take a little break. I promise a full report afterwards, and hopefully some occasional posts along the way.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Here is another post that is a bit overdue. I find it difficult to keep up with blogging at the moment, because most of my times goes to wedding preparations. We are getting married in July and will host the whole event with 100 guests at home, so there is a lot that needs to be done.

But let me show you our new bannister.

We have two entries to our house, which is another of those weird things about the house plan that I do not get, and they are placed right next to each other. This one enters into the mud room, and while I totally get the point of that, the mud room is just very small and it is not working very well because if one enters this way with dirty clothes, there is a fair chance that it will rub off to some of the clean clothes. So, not very practical.

I suspect that this entrance was added later, because the stairs are not quite finished, and a while back I decided to finally put up a bannister around it. I had been thinking about it for a long time, and finally I just decided to get going and see how it would end rather than procastinate it any longer.

I used really long screws to fasten the poles from below. I am certain this is not the recommended way of doing it, but it worked.

I gut the overlays sideways to create nice angels and was very proud when they actually fit!

This is what it looked like once in place. It is a bit skew, but we fixed it with some more screws.

Painted white. Of course.

I think it blended pretty well with the other entrance. I still find the whole concept a bit weird, because what we really would need is a big roof and all that outside the "mud room entrance" so that we can take off the dirty clothes and shoes outside, but it really doesn't make sense to build another one like that so close to the first one.

A bit skew, but.... it's not so noticeable in real life.

This is one of those projects that I am so satisfied of having finished. I debated for so long how to tackle it and in the end I am just glad I did something, even if it is not perfect. I might replace or re-do it some day, but it definitely works for now.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

This isn't a new project, because we made it back when we redid our hall, but I think it merits an own post.

A couple of years ago we rented an apartment that we never moved into (because we found the house before we had moved). The former tenant left no less that three mirrored walls after asking us if we wanted them. When we never moved in, it looked bad for a while because the next tenant did not want them and it looked like we would have to take them all down and possibly pay for the damage. Luckily, in the end the new tenant was promised new wallpapers and so the landlord took down all the mirrors for us.

They are standard mirrors and put together they quickly give real flashbacks of the 80's.

I still needed mirrors for the hallway though, and that's when I came up with this idea.

I went to the lumber yard, got some meters of rough planks. I cut them into pieces that were a bit longer than the mirror.

Then I put them on top each other like this (I was originally going to do it differently, but I made a mistake when measuring and so this was the only option)

I screwed them together, painted them with a matte white paint, and attached the mirrors using nails.

Then I just hung them up, and I have to say they are a lot better than if they had been put up with those black plastic things that usually comes with them. They give kind of a coastal look, I think.

It would be possible to distress them a lot more, but I still have tons of these mirrors left so I suppose I will try it next time.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

First off, I really do not know if "drawer" is the right word for this. School and business English never thaught me the difference between a drawer, a box and a canister.

Either way... when we went shopping for the pieces to the fence-to-be-completed-some-day-when-we-have-no-more-excuses I found this one in one of the containers. (Don't worry, it was a container filled with wood stumps and left over wood, so nothing gross.) I scooped it up and asked if I could have it, which I could.

It has a little damage, and I suppose that's why they had thrown it away, but it doesn't really matter (and could be fixed quite easily). I think it's pretty and I plan to paint it and then put pots of herbes in it. The problem is that I just cant decide on the color.

I am thinking white, with some grey, French inspired, lettering... or aqua with a distressed white on top... or lavender with white lettering... or a pop color? I simply can't decide.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

This post is a bit overdue, as you can see on the lack of green grass on the pictures, but it shouldn't matter.

From our house, there is a small footpath down to the lake. It's not very far at all, but I got the idea of building a portal there. I picture it covered in roses and I hope to paint the name of the house on it some day.

It wasn't a very difficult building project.

You will see that "the legs" are a bit thicker than the overlay, but I basically used what we already had and I paid more attention to the look of it than how much it can support, because it is not supposed to support anything heavy.

We laid it out on the ground and sawed the overlaying ones diagonally.

I think we are both kind of dislike to measure things, because there have been quite a few occasions where we've had to re-do everything because we didn't measure or think correctly. (That would definitely be even more true for projects that I'm doing on my own. I am not much for measuring, whether it's a wooden piece or a cup of flour).

I have no idea what these are called in English (ground anchor maybe?), but it has a long metal spike that we drove into the earth. (And, to be honest, then wiggled up again, put down a bit to the left, wiggled up and put it down before we were satisfied.)

This is what it looked like unpainted. As you can see, the light post is right behind it and it didn't look good, so that's why we moved it.

Moved and painted, and some roses planted on either side. I hope they will grow really quick. They are supposed to give big red, velvety roses and I can't wait to see it.

We hope to add a kind of fence to it in the future, but that project went so badly that we abandoned it half-ways. We will give it a new shot, eventually.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

There has been some personal issues, along with contant computer-related issues lately so I have neglected the blog. I am sorry for that, but sometimes one has to ignore it.

There are tons of things I want to tell you. We have added a bannister to our second entrance, the "cave" has been cleared out, I have planted more plants, changed the curtain in the kitchen and made other changes.

And I have been baking.

I am still experimenting, and this bread did not turn out so good. It looks lovely, but I think it should have been in the oven for longer time.

It was still good though. I just need to follow a recipe instead of just throwing together whatever I feel like.

I also made myself a pizza. Very nice, but I should have skipped the tomatoes inside it.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

I lost quite a few draft posts when Blogger went down and bad luck still seems to be around, because there were several issues with my computer yesterday, preventing me from uploading any photos. I have a great spray paint project that I really want to show you, but it will have to wait until tonight when I am home at my own PC (I am writing this from work).

So sorry for all the issues lately, I hope things will be better from now on.

And yes, I did almost finish the clean up of the "cave". I spent most part of monday there and after 8 hours of sorting, reorganizing and throwing away stuff it is possible to move around in there. There are still some things that needs to be thrown away that were too heavy for me to move, but it is definitely looking better. Will post pictures on friday, I hope.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

So Blogger has behaved strangely all weekend, and I did not post because it seemed very unstable. My post from friday disappeared completely, so here it is again.

I have seen many blogs calling the garage or a similar place for the "man cave", but I have to admit that in this house we are both as bad when it comes to collecting things and storing them in a not-so-organized order. This is our "man and woman cave" - and as you can see it is quite a mess.

I wanted to post this on Friday in hopes that it would make us take care of it this weekend, but that did not really happen (maybe I can blame Blogger for this?). We did start though, and we got one full load to the dump/recycle center and yesterday also loaded the trailer with lots of things that were going to Darlings company. It is an open trailer, but the weather looked fine to we took the risk of leaving it for the night.

That was a bad idea, because at 3AM I woke up and heard the rain pour down outside. There was nothing but to head out in the rain and try to cover the poor furniture with whatever plastic we could find. Luckily they managed quite well after all, but getting up and out at that time is really terrible. Darling called it "Ryan-air-time" referring to a low cost airline that often flies on strange hours so that one have to leave for the airport in the middle of the night.

Anyways. These are the before pictures, but there are not yet any after pictures. I hope I will have some soon, but it might still take weeks. We'll see.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

They were really simple to make, but makes a big difference in the patch. And it will be nice to know what is actually growing where, because previous years we have completely forgotten.

I found some left over wood and sawed it into little pieces. I would have loved to use older wood that had turned gray already, but I did not find any. I think these ones will turn grey in the end so they will have to do.

Originally I planned to add a stick to them, but when I found these really huge nails, I decided to be lazy and just use them. It worked out great.

Then came the tricky part of having to write on them. I first tried with a small stick, but had to give up and go get a proper brush.

All finished.

The other day I spotted some radish, carrots and rocket salad, so I think things are growing according to plan.

Again, very simple to make, but they make the vegetable patch look so much nicer.

Monday, May 9, 2011

I have gotten this piece from my parents, and it's been in the family for quite some time. I have no idea what to do with it. I think it is pretty and it's been in the family, so I do not think I am allowed (or that I should) give it the usual white-paint-treatment, but I find it hard to place in the room.

And to make matters worse (although I do not like to use that word) there is another one, a similar, but much bigger one waiting to be moved to our house that I have just inherited from my grandmother. A very beautiful piece, but so hard to find a good place for.

I suppose this one would benefit from being sanded and getting a new shiny coat, but it also looks like it could be made of veneer and that would make it a lot more difficult.

Hello!

Welcome to my blog!

I write about all the projects in and around our house, where I live with my fiancée (that I have named Darling in the blog) and our two cats.

I am not a professional blogger, nor a knowledgeable photographer and I work full time and travel a lot, so sometimes it is a struggle to find time to share all projects, but I try to remind myself that I am doing this for fun and some delays are not the end of the world.

Our house is placed next to the lake and we bought it three years ago. It was built 2002.

When we moved in it was a lot of wood, and I have been painting most of it since. You can find the before pictureshere.

You will soon notice that English is not my mother tongue and I am still learning all the home improvement terms. Please correct me when you find errors.

You are welcome to use the pictures, just remember to link back to this site.

I am happy to have you here and hope that you will be a follower. If you want to contact me, you can do so at macewe@gmail.com.